In August of 1992 Christopher McCandless died in one of the strangest ways in human history. McCandless was a transcendentalist, an adventurer, a crazy, wild-man. His strange and confusing life and death boggled the minds of everyone who heard his story. Everyone except Jon Krakauer. Krakauer, himself, was an adventurer. Jon and Chris’s stories were so similar, they seemed to be intertwined. As soon as Krakauer had heard Chris McCandless’s he was simply fascinated by his worldview. After much investigation of McCandless’s life and death Krakauer claims, “I was haunted by the particulars of the boy’s starvation and by vague, unsettling parallels between events in his life and those in my own (Krakauer ii).” As fate would have it, in 1995 Jon …show more content…
In 1976, Jon Krakauer ventured out into the Alaskan bush in an attempt to survive on his own with no human connection. This trip was in an attempt to seek refuge and peace in nature after his crazy college experiences. 1976 was the year that Jon Krakauer turned twenty-two. Chris McCandless was only two years older when he began his Alaskan trek. Chris had also went without any human connection after he began his Alaskan journey. Chris, similar to Jon, left on his adventure soon after leaving the busy college life and was partially seeking refuge from his controlling parents. McCandless and Krakauer also share similar personality traits. Krakauer has been described as a personal with only a few personal friends (About Jon Krakauer). Into the Wild depicts McCandless as a very personal person only making personal connections with his family members and a few random hitchhiking friends. Both McCandless and Krakauer have claimed to find solace in the arms of plain, undisturbed nature. Therefore, in the sense of their intricate pasts and personalities, Jon Krakauer and Christopher McCandless have several things in …show more content…
First of all, Krakauer was granted access to reading McCandless’s journals. Carine McCandless, Chris’s younger sister, claims that from childhood, Chris documented a significant amount of information in his personal journals (). This held true on his final adventure. McCandless wrote many things down in his journal on that trip, including drawings and information on plants that he had encountered. McCandless also wrote down his thoughts and ideas in his journal. The information found in Chris McCandless’s journal played a key role in the documentation of Into The Wild. Jon Krakauer also interviewed several of McCandless’s friends and family members. Throughout the book, Krakauer interviews Walt and Carine McCandless. The father and daughter tell Krakauer a lot about what Chris was like as a child and what his upbringing was like. Krakauer also engaged in a Q&A with some of the friends Chris made on his trek. Within the first five chapters, Jon Krakauer tells of conversations that he had with Jim Gallien, Walt Westerburg, Jan and Bob Burres, and several of the people who first discovered McCandless’s body. Between all of these first hand recounts, and the journal of Chris McCandless, Jon Krakauer has some solid research under his
Many individuals decide to live their life in solitary; though, only a few choose to live in the wild. The book, Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer vividly paints the adventurous trek Chris McCandless went on. From the friends he made, to the hardships he went through, McCandless is portrayed as a friendly, sociable person despite the fact that he was a vagabond. Other than McCandless, there are even more individuals that have taken the risks to live in the wilderness such as, Jon Krakauer and Everett Ruess. All three of them had both similarities and differences between their own qualities as a person and their journey.
“I have had a happy life and thank the Lord. Goodbye and may God bless all!”(199), these were the last words of Chris McCandless in a picture with him smiling and waving good-bye. Into The Wild by Jon Krakauer is an extension of an article first published in Outside magazine. In the book, Krakauer further explains the journey of Chris McCandless, while providing his own insight to provide the reader a better understanding of the McCandless reasoning. McCandless lived a nomadic life after he graduated from college, traveling from South Dakota to Mexico. However, his two year journey proved fatal when he took a trip to Alaska, his greatest undertaking. Among his remains several books were discovered, including a copy of Walden by Henry D. Thoreau
The epigraphs presented by Krakauer before each chapter of the memoir Into the Wild dive deep into the life of Chris McCandless before and after his journey into the Alaskan wilderness. They compare him to famous “coming of age characters” and specific ideas written by some of his favorite philosophers. These give the reader a stronger sense of who Chris was and why he made the decision to ultimately walk alone into the wild.
A young man journey into the deep wild to escape the pressure of society and in seek of the meaning of happiness. Into The Wild, a non-fiction biography written by Jon Krakauer, a story of a man named Chris McCandless, who is a well educated, wealthy young man, that seek his answer to true happiness in the wild of the Alaska region. As his journey continue onward, he met many new people that he had influence to do things against the current.
The novel “Into the Wild” by Jon Krakauer goes into great detail to describe the main character, Chris McCandless, who died traveling alone into the Alaskan wilderness. McCandless, whom in the novel renamed himself Alex, left his home and family to travel to Alaska in 1992. In Alaska McCandless planned to live an isolated life in the desolate wilderness, but unfortunately he did not survive. This non-fiction novel portrays his life leading up to his departure and it captures the true essence of what it means to be “in the wild”.
Jon Krakauer, fascinated by a young man in April 1992 who hitchhiked to Alaska and lived alone in the wild for four months before his decomposed body was discovered, writes the story of Christopher McCandless, in his national bestseller: Into the Wild. McCandless was always a unique and intelligent boy who saw the world differently. Into the Wild explores all aspects of McCandless’s life in order to better understand the reason why a smart, social boy, from an upper class family would put himself in extraordinary peril by living off the land in the Alaskan Bush. McCandless represents the true tragic hero that Aristotle defined. Krakauer depicts McCandless as a tragic hero by detailing his unique and perhaps flawed views on society, his final demise in the Alaskan Bush, and his recognition of the truth, to reveal that pure happiness requires sharing it with others.
Sometimes a character may be pushed over the edge by our materialistic society to discover his/her true roots, which can only be found by going back to nature where monetary status was not important. Chris McCandless leaves all his possessions and begins a trek across the Western United States, which eventually brings him to the place of his demise-Alaska. Jon Krakauer makes you feel like you are with Chris on his journey and uses exerts from various authors such as Thoreau, London, and Tolstoy, as well as flashbacks and narrative pace and even is able to parallel the adventures of Chris to his own life as a young man in his novel Into the Wild. Krakauer educates himself of McCandless’ story by talking to the people that knew Chris the best. These people were not only his family but the people he met on the roads of his travels- they are the ones who became his road family.
Roberts, David. "Jon Krakauer + Sean Penn: Back Into The Wild." National Geographic. National Geographic, n.d. Web. 26 Mar. 2014. .
Chris McCandless is regarded as being something as a spiritual figure almost as a cult hero, some call him a disillusioned fool, some call him a great adventurer, and the debate still continues. As Matthew Power calls in his article, an article where he tells the story of McCandless,“The debate falls into two camps: Krakauer's visionary seeker, the tragic hero who dared to live the unmediated life he had dreamed of and died trying; or, as many Alaskans see it, the unprepared fool, a greenhorn who had fundamentally misjudged the wilderness he'd wanted so desperately to commune with.” Like so many stories covering Christopher McCandless’ death, both ends of the argument are discussed in an unfavored manner in the hopes to help develop an opinion on the McCandless story. This open ended question can only be answered open-endedly based on what the readers base for themselves as covered stories intend. Like Power has done, ...
Into the Wild, written by Jon Krakauer, is the story of a young man named Christopher Johnson McCandless who ventured off to Alaska and tried to survive in the wild. McCandless grew up in Annandale, Virginia where he attended school and made very good grades, rarely bringing home anything below an A. His father, Walt worked for NASA for a little while, before starting his own business with Chris’s mother, Billie, out of their own home. They worked hard and for long hours to get the business up and running and it finally paid off. The McCandless family was wealthy, but had many emotional problems. After graduating from Emory University in 1990, Chris McCandless donated twenty-four thousand dollars from his savings account to charity, changed his name to Alexander Supertramp, and then disappeared. This book tells the story of his life and travels. Some critics say that Chris McCandless was a very admirable person. He was a brave man that followed his dreams. However, given all of his flaws, attitudes, and actions, he is un-admirable. McCandless walked into the wild very unprepared and stubborn. He also treated his family poorly as well as anyone who got emotionally close to him. Chris was additionally too impressionable in a way that he admired authors along with the books they wrote, and tried to imitate them. He was very rebellious in his actions as well, and did not try to change the world or help others.
Into the Wild is the story of the smart, young and adventurous Chris McCandless who left his family and hometown in his early 20s to explore the wilderness. His story, filled with adventures across the continent (and border at one point), unfortunately comes to an end in his "Great Alaskan Adventure" when he gets trapped inside the Alaskan Tundra, eats paralyzing wild potato seeds and dies on August 18th 1992 because of starvation. McCandless had unique beliefs when it came to society. Ever since his death, many people have been inspired by his beliefs and have either gone into the wild or alienated themselves from society in a way. In an attempt to clear up all the confusion about the hitchhiker found in Alaska, author Jon Krakauer gathers up enough information to write a biography on Chris McCandless in 1996. After 10 years, director Sean Penn takes McCandless’ story and directs a movie about him which uses the same information gathered by Krakauer but with his own twists. Krakauer uses specific evidence to convey his belief that Chris McCandless had a neutral relationship with his parents, whereas Penn misinforms the audience by using McCandless’ sister as the narrator to convey his belief that Chris McCandless’ relationship with his parents was abusive and destructive. Ultimately, the belief that resonates most with me personally is Krakauer’s because he uses specific evidence and a reliable narrator who stays neutral throughout most of the story.h
Into the Wild, written by John Krakauer tells of a young man named Chris McCandless who 1deserted his college degree and all his worldly possessions in favor of a primitive transient life in the wilderness. Krakauer first told the story of Chris in an article in Outside Magazine, but went on to write a thorough book, which encompasses his life in the hopes to explain what caused him to venture off alone into the wild. McCandless’ story soon became a national phenomenon, and had many people questioning why a “young man from a well-to-do East Coast family [would] hitchhike to Alaska” (Krakauer i). Chris comes from an affluent household and has parents that strived to create a desirable life for him and his sister. As Chris grows up, he becomes more and more disturbed by society’s ideals and the control they have on everyday life. He made a point of spiting his parents and the lifestyle they lived. This sense of unhappiness continues to build until after Chris has graduated college and decided to leave everything behind for the Alaskan wilderness. Knowing very little about how to survive in the wild, Chris ventures off on his adventure in a state of naïveté. It is obvious that he possessed monumental potential that was wasted on romanticized ideals and a lack of wisdom. Christopher McCandless is a unique and talented young man, but his selfish and ultimately complacent attitude towards life and his successes led to his demise.
In 1990, when he was 22 years old, Christopher McCandless ventured out into the Alaska wilderness in search for true happiness, and 2 years later he suffered a tragic death. An aspiring writer, Jon Krakauer, found McCandless’ story fascinating and chose to dedicate 3 years of his life to write a novel about him. The book entitled “Into the Wild” tells the tale of Christopher McCandless, an ill prepared transcendentalist longing for philosophical enrichment, who naïvely, failed to consider the dangers of isolating himself from human society for such a long period of time. Though Christopher McCandless made a courageous attempt to separate himself from society, in order to achieve self-fulfillment, the stubborn nature of this reckless greenhorn led him to his unfortunate demise.
In Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer explores the human fascination with the purpose of life and nature. Krakauer documents the life and death of Chris McCandless, a young man that embarked on an Odyssey in the Alaskan wilderness. Like many people, McCandless believed that he could give his life meaning by pursuing a relationship with nature. He also believed that rejecting human relationships, abandoning his materialistic ways, and purchasing a book about wildlife would strengthen his relationship with nature. However, after spending several months enduring the extreme conditions of the Alaskan wilderness, McCandless’ beliefs begin to work against him. He then accepts that he needs humans, cannot escape materialism, and can never fully understand how nature functions. Most importantly, he realizes that human relationships are more valuable than infinite solitude. McCandless’ gradual change of heart demonstrates that exploring the wilderness is a transformative experience. Krakauer uses the life and death of Chris McCandless to convey that humans need to explore nature in order to discover the meaning of life.
The scene opens to the vast Alaskan frontier. A sole man treks through the cold snow and ominous mountain range. That man is Christopher Johnson McCandless. His story first came into the public’s light after Jon Krakauer published an article detailing McCandless’s endeavours in the January 1993 issue of Outside magazine. Since then, McCandless’s story has been shared worldwide, and with this wide-ranging audience comes a wide-spectrum of varying opinions concerning McCandless. Academy Award-winning filmmaker, Sean Penn presents his own take on the life of Christopher McCandless in his 2007 film adaptation of Into The Wild. Although it may have been a daunting task to undertake, the process of retelling the life of McCandless and projecting